


Close Enough to Touch

by FuchsiaMae



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2019-08-20 01:17:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16546028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuchsiaMae/pseuds/FuchsiaMae
Summary: Robert's eyes are not only on the stars.(Originally posted to Tumblr 05/27/13)





	Close Enough to Touch

He’d never seen such stars. Even on a moonless night such as this, they burned bright and clear, bathing all of Columbia in their pale glow. Beneath them, the city lay silent and still—he and his twin, alone together on her rooftop terrace, might be the only souls for miles.

“It is… astonishing here,” he murmured, gazing out across the skyline.

“On a clear night, the stars are like nothing else.”

Her gaze followed his, over treetops and rooftops, over empty streets, up to the brightly shining stars.  _Almost close enough to touch_ , ran the cliché through his mind. He cast a sidelong glace at his counterpart, wondering if she thought the same.

“Not quite close enough to touch,” she answered the unasked question. “But closer than any other city on earth.”

“Indeed.” His eyes turned back out over the view. “Its creator must be very proud.”

“Prouder than any mother of her child.”

“And rightly so.”

“But we needn’t talk about that.” Beside him, she averted her gaze.

He noticed from the corner of his eye. “Not tiring of your glory, I hope?”

“Never.” And there he caught the flicker of a smile. “But we needn’t belabor what’s evident no matter where you look.”

“Ah. True.”

His eyes followed her as she turned away, moving to the low stone bench across the terrace. “I often seek solace in the night air when work becomes overbearing,” she said as she sat. “It helps clear the mind. Calms thoughts that would race too fast.”

“And we need that, don’t we?”

“Mm.”

He shifted to lean against the railing, his back to the landscape, facing her. “I stargaze often myself. I shall do it even more now that I have such a view.”

“I value my solitude on such nights,” she said archly, “but… I might not mind your company.”

“Thank you. Sister.” The word felt unfamiliar on his tongue. “I’ll try not to disturb your solitude.”

“I might not mind it.”

Her tone was a touch too ambiguous to be a certain invitation. He took it as one anyhow. Closing the distance between them, he came to sit on the bench beside her, turning his gaze out to mirror his twin’s as her eyes scanned the cloudless sky. They looked up at the stars in silence.

“On nights like this,” she mused in the stillness, “I’ve often thought of—”

“Other selves?”

“Precisely.”

He followed her musing. “In lives just like our own, but not.”

“Looking up at the same stars.”

“Ah, but are they the same?”

“That’s the question.”

“Isn’t it just.” They lapsed into comfortable silence for another moment. “I must confess I never considered—”

“That your doppelganger would be of the opposite sex?”

“Yes.”

“Nor did I.”

“I suppose it must’ve crossed my mind in abstract, as a possibility, but—”

“You never really thought on it.” That smile ghosted across her lips again. “Funny. I must’ve imagined a thousand and one other Rosalinds, but never a Robert.”

“Disappointed?”

“Not so much as I might have thought.” He could almost feel her eyes as they flicked his way. “And you?”

“Mm?”

“You wouldn’t prefer a masculine partner? I’m told they’re far superior in every respect.”

Her dry tone made him smile. “I’m sure you can more than equal a man in any respect.”

“Good answer.”

He stretched his shoulders, letting himself relax into the back of the bench. Beside him she shifted a little nearer. “On the contrary, sister, I find your different gender is…”

“Intriguing?”

“An unexpected pleasure.”

“Ah.” She sounded pleased. “And what of my other qualities? My boldness, my intellect, my rapier wit?”

“Those were expected pleasures,” he quipped. “You wouldn’t be me without them.”

That earned a quiet laugh. “True.”

The conversation’s easy playfulness was impossible to resist. He went on, “And how does your male counterpart measure up? Boldness, intellect, rapier wit?”

“My male counterpart is a boor,” she said airily, playing along.

“You of all people would know, eh?”

“And there he proves it!” She gave him a gentle swat on the arm, and he grinned. “Still, I suppose a boor with a working knowledge of quantum physics is worth something.”

“Good to hear.”

“With him around, I daresay life will be much more…”

“Intriguing?”

She took a moment to savor the answer on her tongue. “Full of unexpected pleasures.”

“Ah.”

Silence fell between them once more—companionable silence, the kind that needn’t drag out uneasy words to fill it. Being with her felt as easy as being alone. Yet, as he was very much aware, he was not alone.

His eyes drifted over to his double on the bench. As she gazed up overhead, starlight glowed in her face as if she’d been carved by Bernini from marble. He noted her fine-boned cheeks, her soft lips, the upward slope of her nose identical to his own. Like a mirror, and yet not. Her bright eyes glimmered like stars themselves.  _Almost close enough to touch_ , he thought again, but his eyes weren’t on the sky this time.

So distant for so long—a whole world away, a part of himself so far out of reach, plaguing him with the hollow sense that he’d never be complete without her—and now all that separated them was a few breaths of night air.

Slowly, he eased his large hand over her dainty one. She didn’t react—except, after a moment, to lace her fingers with his.

They spoke no more. They didn’t need to. Together they sat, long into the night, gazing up at the stars they now shared. Sleep crept up on them both at once, so neither was conscious enough to keep from nodding on the other’s shoulder. Resting side by side, they drifted into a light doze, hands still twined.


End file.
